Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Lovelow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, Disney shares sinking after giving a tepid growth outlook. That's as the market awaits news on who will be its new leader.
Plus, Oracle raising more debt as the software giant looks to raise $45 to $50 billion in bonds and equity for additional cloud infrastructure capacity. And sources say Elon Musk is in advanced talks to combine SpaceX with XAI. We'll have all the details, but first we check in on these markets that in certain areas breathe some sighs of relief.
After sell-off on the Nasdaq, on the S&P 500, we're actually seeing a bit more of the buying of the dip when it comes to stocks. Not so much when you're looking at commodities. We're up 0.7% when you're looking at the Nasdaq. Now, Bitcoin bounces, but boy, did it feel the pain over the course of the weekend. We're only trading at 78,000.
So still the pressure on on so-called digital gold, as we actually see that continued strain on gold and silver that really catalyzed on Friday and the decision of who will be the next Fed chair. Move on to the individual stocks. Nvidia is one of the biggest points drags to the downside today, off by 1.4 percent.
We're going to dig into what really its relationship with OpenAI and how much it's committing to funding it is going to look like. We're looking at Oracle now up two percentage points. It's selling a
wealth of debt and equity but does this steady the nerves that it would in some way tempt junk status on its debt we're getting into that a little bit later move on though because in the here and now we're looking at earnings and it was tepid growth more broadly that we saw for disney And that particular seems to be being pointed forward to this fiscal quarter that we look at.
What is the worry about people not traveling to as many of the parks in the year to come? We're currently off by 4%, as you say, on the intraday basis. But interesting news over the course of the weekend as well about management. Felix Gillette joins us now. Just going to the fundamentals of the business. The quarter they just reported was strong, particularly in streaming.
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Chapter 2: What are the latest earnings results for Disney and their impact?
But it seems to be where we're going in parks, which is a slight nervousness.
Yeah. I mean, they just reported record sales in parks for the previous quarter. They hit $10 billion of sales in the quarter for the first time. But they offered this outlook today that said, in the current quarter, there are some concerns. There's all this volatility in terms of the international market. Are they going to have as many international visitors to the parks?
They're going to shift some of their
Chapter 3: How is Oracle planning to raise $50 billion for cloud infrastructure?
to try and attract more domestic visitors to the domestic parks. There's also increased costs. They're launching a new cruise ship. They have a new Frozen exhibit opening in the parks in France. So, yeah, the parks outlook for this quarter is not as good, coming off a very strong quarter.
Chapter 4: What does Elon Musk's potential SpaceX and xAI merger mean for the tech industry?
Interesting time for parks, though, and its leadership, because we understand there's a key vote going on at the board level this week.
Yeah, so the board is meeting. They're expected to vote on Bob Iger's successor. We've been watching this for three years now. They are leaning towards Josh DeMauro, who's the head of parks, and we're expecting to see that vote this week. Disney had previously said they're going to announce a successor for Bob Iger sometime before the end of March.
So things are moving forward, and it makes sense that Josh DeMauro would be in the lead at this point. The parks and cruise division is providing the vast amounts of profit at this company, and it sort of reflects where things are at.
The experience is really working well for consumers right now, and as we've talked about, the home entertainment is still somewhat tumultuous as we make this transition from cable to streaming.
Felix Gillette with the best write-up. We so appreciate it. Thank you. Meanwhile, Disney CEO Bob Iger did talk about their IP, saying there's no rush to acquire any more of it. Here he is in today's earnings call.
I think we have a great hand. I don't really feel that we have a need to buy more IP. We're just going to continue to create our own. And we've got an unbelievable bedrock of stories already told to grow from.
Let's dig into Disney streaming landscape and more with Daniel Payne, his Slate Stone Wealth CIO. Just for a moment, we're just talking about how important the parks are. But from the streaming side, it had a really good innings in terms of profitability, finally, in terms of the previous quarter just reported on. But push us forward.
Yeah, really good from the entertainment standpoint, and that's where they see a lot of their operating leverage in the company. But we do believe, moving forward, there are a few catalysts out there on the experiences, which is their parks and cruises over the course of the year that really could be beneficial to shareholders.
You know, the near-term concerns, which I mentioned for the first quarter because of international travel, you know, might be pressuring the stock today along with the management changes. There's a lot going there, you know, under the hood. But bottom line is we got massive stimulus coming down the pipe in this country with the tax cuts, with the one big beautiful bill.
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Chapter 5: What concerns are there about Disney's park attendance and future growth?
And that's kind of the factor that investors are weighing right now, especially with this change in leadership, because it just adds uncertainty to the stock. But, you know, once again, you know, uncertainty leads to opportunity and there are opportunities how you make money in the stock over a market cycle.
Daniel Payne of Slate Stone Wealth. I appreciate you coming on today. And coming up, the U.S. It aims to slash its reliance on Chinese rare earths and other metals. We'll tell you all about the plans for the first of its kind stockpile for the U.S. private sector. That's next. This is Bloomberg Tech. President Trump is set to launch a $12 billion stockpile of strategic critical minerals.
The move is set to counter U.S. reliance on Chinese rare earths, but it's sent prices for related companies higher. But it's all according to sources thus far. Let's bring in Bloomberg's tech editor in D.C., Mike Shepard. Tell us about this first-of-its-kind store for U.S. private sector. What do we know is set to potentially be announced here, Mike?
Well, what we're looking for is the U.S. Export-Import Bank to take a vote later today on approving this package. The private sector will kick in about $1.67 billion as part of this seed money, and the U.S. Export-Import Bank will kick in another $10 billion, and this would be the biggest such deal in the bank's history by far.
And it really is a sign of just how much the administration is pushing in this area of rare earths and critical minerals and trying to wean the U.S. from its dependence on China as a key source for these inputs. They're so essential to the private sector, to autos, to iPhones, to gas turbines even. And without access to them, we risk bankruptcy.
seeing a manufacturing supply chain disruption akin to what we risked experiencing earlier last year when the Chinese government started to impose some of those export controls on rare earths. So the U.S. is trying to diversify around it and ensure both pricing stability and supply stability here, Caro.
Senior administration officials have been detailing what could be announced.
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Chapter 6: How is Oracle's bond sale perceived by investors?
But what's interesting, Mike, is which countries are we going to be sourcing from? And what sort of backstops do the export-import bank need to know that they can sell this on correctly and not be landed with an awful lot of minerals?
Well, the idea is to ensure that U.S. manufacturers have this access. And it would create this stockpile akin to the strategic petroleum reserve here that manufacturers here in the U.S. could access as needed. They would have to pay into it to be able to eventually make purchases and then promise to replenish it down the road.
But this is just one of several steps in the area of rare earths that the U.S. government is taking right now.
Later this week, there will be meetings with dozens of foreign ministers here in Washington to agree on trying to find some way to create a mechanism to stabilize prices and supply around the world, not just here in the U.S., but with allies so that collectively they can reduce some of their dependence on China and increase extraction, mining and refining. in a number of other countries.
While we call them rare earths, they are actually fairly common. It is just that they are not extracted or exploited in as many places as they are and to the extent that China has come to dominate the market. And, Carol, the clock is ticking. Remember that the trade truce that the president signed with Xi Jinping late last year, it's only good for one year.
So they have to start making these moves to ensure that supply won't be as disrupted as it risked facing earlier last year before the trade agreement.
We'll see how Project Voltage is known, continues Bloomberg's Mike Shepard. Thanks for detailing all of this. Let's get the broader economic picture now. Let's talk about what's moving tech stocks in particular. Natalie Gallagher is with us, principal economist and directorate board. Just going back to that rare earth suggestion, is that positive?
Is the supply chain a real headache for the businesses out there right now?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, what we're seeing is a fundamental shift in how the U.S. has really been addressing supply chain resilience over the past few years and absolutely top of mind following the export control measures by China back in 2025.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of NVIDIA's investment in OpenAI?
If we get those productivity gains, then this is absolutely a great story of foresight. If we don't see those productivity gains, then we're going to have a conversation much more housed around capital misallocation.
But Natalie, how's that going to show up? As an economist, are you looking at jobs data? I mean, because at the moment, all we're seeing is jobs cut upon jobs cut, which in some ways seems to be going back to AI.
Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating, right? What we're seeing in the overall jobs data, I'll first sort of approach that and then tell you as an economist what I'm looking at. We look at the jobs data, there's not a whole lot of evidence that the jobs that are currently being cut is due to AI, right? We know that that's what companies are saying.
At the same time, it's not really showing up in a clear way in the data. On the other hand, what we do really need to see is almost a discontinuous jump in the productivity data, right? So if we're sort of on this level increase, what we really want to see with AI is we're jumping up and then we're on a totally new level playing field.
When we see that, and there should be early adopters in some key industries, I'm thinking healthcare, consulting, finance, we should see those early signals and they should be showing up in the data. As soon as 2026, you think? That, I firmly believe that's going to need to happen in 2026 in order for these valuations to be deemed worthwhile.
We're going to be getting into these big stories that are in the market today of how, at the moment, we continue to fuel the ever-needing expansion of AI infrastructure, whether it's Oracle selling debt and equity, whether or not NVIDIA is going to be giving up to $100 billion or not to open AI. How are you seeing that narrative continue in 2026?
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Chapter 8: How are crypto exchanges responding to the current market conditions?
Are we going to have to see a pullback in the amount that companies are committing?
You know, I think it's more so we're really going to have to see the ROI in a meaningful way that we can go back to. And again, that gets back to productivity. And the risk really is, as we sort of pull all of these levers and they get more and more complex, it becomes a much more opaque environment, right, for investors to really operate in.
And so the risk of those valuations maybe being artificially bolstered goes up.
Just from your perspective, the narrative of circular deals – Is that actually, in many ways, we often put it in a negative context, but is exactly what NVIDIA should be doing, investing in its own clients to be able to foster the potential ROI that we might see in this lockstep jump?
Yeah, I mean, absolutely, right? So if we see this truly meaningful transformation in the economy that's sort of promised with AI, then we're in a great spot, right? These circular investing schemes, that is excellent foresight by these companies. If we don't see that, right, that's the real risk of pretty significant market correction, right?
Because that investing scheme, it is bolstering the overall revenue numbers that we're seeing.
What therefore are some more of the headwinds? Other than waiting for ROAI, we're also still tackling tariffs. We're still worried about South Korea's relationship with the United States, for example, in the here and now, let alone China. What could be the headwind that you're looking out for?
You know, one headwind I'm particularly interested in tracking is actually jobs, right? So we're in a labor market overall when we talk about the macro economy that's quite soft. But when we speak specifically to AI, machine learning, sort of these high-powered tech jobs, we have a little bit of a bottleneck. there.
And so, something really interesting that came out of the U.S.-Taiwan trade deal just a few weeks ago was this goal, right, of onshoring significant supply chain efforts from Taiwan to the U.S. In order to do that, we're also going to need significant changes in our workforce development. And there's a risk there, right, because we've had meaningful policy changes over the last year alone.
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